Vision, Reality Collide in Common Tests.

The article reports on the efforts of the U.S. educational consortia Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced Testing to field test assessment measures within the U.S. Common Core State Standards curriculum initiative as of 2014. An overview is provided of both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Testing test designs. Issues surrounding political, technical and financial aspects of the test designs are also identified in turn.